Love, Hope, and Sunday Dinner.

Menu

Category Archives: Projects

I have so many things to write about, from the chickens to the new baby pigs and our first calf disaster. But, the big news gets to go first!

The Sunday Dinner Farm will be moving out of my imagination and into reality by the end of this year! We will soon begin the slow move to the farm on the mountain and start planting our roots. It will not be quick or painless, I’m sure. But it will at least be a step towards all of our future plans. Now, who wants to pack boxes? And where’s the number for the dumpster company? Pretty sure all of those boxes that have been sitting in the attic, that never got unpacked during the last 3 moves, don’t really need to go with.

The chicken camper is finished and the girls are being coop trained. We will install the nesting boxes later this spring and my daughter and I will paint the camper.

The ladies will be getting their first taste of the outside world in the next few days when they get to explore their run for the first time. They have grown from the little fluff butts to gorgeous, glossy girls! So far only two have names since they are the only two I can tell apart from their breed mates.

Their run is fenced and will be seeded this weekend. We still need to work on hawk deterrent as there is suddenly a hawk flying around a few times a week that has never been here before. The top of the run will be reinforced this weekend.

It’s been a busy few weeks at the homestead. I’m pretty sure my son is going to grow up thinking everyone has a backhoe in the backyard!

We are anxiously waiting for Big Momma Harriet to calve at the Red Barn. She looks quite the sight at the moment with her heavy belly and half of her winter fur shed out. Last year’s little heifer, Rosabelle, grew like wildfire over the winter. She is nearly as big as her Momma. She is going to be rather cranky when it’s time for Momma and the new calf to move to their own pasture.

We took the kids over to the red barn last weekend and put them both to work. They helped me scrub the summer water tanks, muck the last of the winter manure out of the barn, helped their Papa clean the hay loft, and rode with their Daddy to push the cows to spring pasture. It was a wonderful day of family play without any gadgets or gizmos!

The sow at the farm on the mountain is ready to deliver any day. I love those first few days of new piglets when those little babies are shiny and dainty!

Our plans for this years large garden are under way, with minor setbacks. We started the tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts, and broccoli indoors last month then moved them out to the enclosed greenhouse with the rhubarb, strawberries, and currants. We jumped the gun and lost the tomato, brussel sprouts, and peppers last weekend when the temperature dropped suddenly overnight. I’ll be replanting those this weekend.

Two weeks ago, we had a bizarre winter thaw weekend and it was 70 degrees in the sunshine out in the yard. Nothing like a warm spell to get your blood screaming for spring and get the kids trying to kick their shoes off all day.

70 degrees and dandelions in bloom on January 13th.

We took advantage of that heat wave to put up some posts for the chicken coop run.

Let’s dig some post holes!

The easiest way to check the hole for depth is apparently asking a two year old!